Clarets of Fire

by Christine E. Blum

  I quickly explained the reason for my visit, dashing her hopes that I was heading up another Google-size company to set up shop in the area. To her credit Liza hardly altered her expression.

  “Perfect! Everyone had been sending me these long proposals, and I’ve been stressing about how I’d find the time to read them all, let alone understand them. I’m a bit of a Luddite you see.”

  Liza feigned shame, but I could tell that she was proud of using the term “Luddite,” meaning someone who eschews technology.

  “Is this your family?” I gave a framed photo of at least three generations of people a closer look.

  “Hah! No, I’m an only child and never married. But some of my clients are big family people so I put that photo out. If they ask I’ll tell them the truth, but more often than not they just assume.”

  Just then the phone rang, and she pulled one multitasking chopstick from her bun and used it to depress the button, thereby keeping her fingernail extensions intact.

  “Yes, this is Liza Gilhooly,” she said into the phone while holding the chopstick in the air instead of her index finger to let me know that she’d be just a second. “I see, I’m so sorry for your loss. What sort of business was this? A drugstore! Of course, I’ve shopped there many, many times. Listen, may I get your name and number and ring you back in a few? I’m with a business associate and I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  Business associate? Does that mean that I’ve got the job?

  She scribbled down the caller’s information, which was quite a feat since for this task the chopstick was of no help. After she hung up, she shook her head slowly.

  “Did you happen to see that fire up the street yesterday, Halsey?”

  I nodded. “Not only that. Bardot and I were in it!”

  Liza sat up ramrod straight.

  “The person that just called owned the drugstore that burned to the ground. They want to start fresh and get out from under those smarmy investors who own the mall.”

  Now I was sitting ramrod straight.

  “Sounds like you have quite a story to tell me about them,” I encouraged her.

  “Seems like you do too, Halsey. Shall we roll for who goes first?”

  Liza reached under her desk and presented me with one of a pair of neon pink fuzzy dice.

  Chapter Five

  It was Wine Club Tuesday, and we were gathered at Aimee’s house for the imbibing and imparting of information. Aimee is the ultimate hostess to the point where you wish that she’d just sit down for a bit and enjoy her guests.

  She and her doctor boyfriend Tom have been doing some renovations on their home, including new kitchen cabinets and adding a heavy, mission-style round oak dining table, which was where we had all gathered. Since we were all still recovering from the effects of the fire, we were eating and pouring light today. Sally made her “drunken tomatoes”—vodka-infused little gems with sea salt and coarse black pepper.

  What? Vodka is made from potatoes, so it is just another vegetable.

  Aimee had gone Mediterranean on us and laid out an impressive tray of three kinds of olives, roasted red pepper and artichoke tapenade with grilled pita bread, mini spanakopita squares, several hummus dips, and feta and watermelon skewers. Peggy and I contributed the wine and today chose to serve an Argiolas Costamolino Vermentino from Sardinia, Italy (my choice), and Peggy went with a Heitz Grignolino rosé from Napa Valley, California.

  The Vermentino is a white wine grape that has a lemony acidity. It is aromatic, light, and refreshing. We’ve been known to go through a number of bottles without even counting. Peggy’s Grignolino is a red Italian grape with a light, tangy touch of cranberry and red currant. Yum!

  “I am just sick about Rico and Isabella’s loss, and poor Roberto, let’s take a moment to remember him,” Aimee said after we’d toasted and let the first grape elixir wake up our taste buds.

  “It is really a shock, and to think that the inspectors are looking to pin this on them. We’re just going to have to nip that in the bud.” Peggy looked around the table challenging us to the task.

  This wasn’t just wishful thinking on Peggy’s part because, in addition to enlisting us, she did have some friends with real muscle and investigative pull. You see, as a young woman she served briefly with the CIA, and by that I mean she spied on Russians flying in and out of the Santa Monica Airport. And at close to ninety she still had it.

  “I’m thinking that the best way that we can help the Brunos is to throw as many credible SODDIs into the mix as possible.” Before I could go on, Aimee chimed in.

  “What kind of sodies? We have some really yummy root beer, but it comes from a fountain, we don’t have it in cans.”

  “Sweet Jesus and pass the macaroni. She said S-O-D-D-I; it’s a legal defense term, honey, and stands for ‘some other dude did it.’ Great idea, Halsey, but how do we come up with the dudes?”

  Sally had once again astounded me with her expressions.

  “We may already have two.”

  That got everyone’s attention in a hurry. I told them about my encounter with Brandon, the surfer boy and failing auto parts shop inheritor.

  “What do you think he was going back into those awful ruins for? Gosh, maybe it was a photo of his dear departed grandfather,” Aimee suggested, and cued the waterworks.

  “He didn’t seem all too broken up about the loss of a familial elder when he told me the story.”

  “This kind of sleuthing is right up my alley,” Peggy declared. “Or should I say my old friends’ and associates’ alley from The Company.”

  “Seems like a bit of a long shot, but if you need my help, Peggy, I’m all yours.”

  While stellar of Sally to offer assistance, I know for a fact that their research forays often roll right into a mini Wine Club à deux.

  “Great!”

  “You said you had two sodas, Halsey?”

  I wasn’t going to correct Aimee again. She looked so earnest in her desire to help that I didn’t want to dampen her spirit.

  “You are a really good listener, Aimee. The second one is a real lead to follow up on.”

  I explained how I ended up in Liza Gilhooly’s office and added that before I left I’d been awarded the job of building her commercial real estate website. Momentum then stopped for congratulatory toasts and more wine. When everyone settled down again, I continued.

  “While I was with her, she got a call from the owners of the drugstore that was in the fire asking her to help find them another location. They told her that they wanted nothing further to do with the owners of their old building regardless of how fast they rebuilt.”

  “Aha, do we have a not-so-accidental-fire situation here? And I don’t mean the Brunos.” Peggy was grinning at the prospect of catching a thief.

  “It’s a possibility. Liza says that the owners are a group of investors that keep their holdings and real estate history very close to their vest. But Liza, who’s been around the rodeo a few years, remembers the same group buying up street-level retail locations like crazy in the mid- to late eighties. They called themselves the Provident Commerce Group of Mar Vista, and back then they were giving out loans and rental contracts like green beer on Saint Paddy’s Day. But then the nineties hit and the market tanked.”

  “I remember that,” Sally said as she thought back. “I was working for a cardiologist, Dr. Fenzel, and we suddenly got very busy.”

  “Did your new client have anything else to say about this group? How did they fare during the slump?”

  “That’s the curious part. Liza says that almost from one day to the next all the signs disappeared from the buildings they owned, and no one saw or heard from them for the next ten years.”

  “Oh wow, and what happened to the businesses that were in their buildings? Was everybody okay?”

  This hit close to home for Aimee. Her frozen yogurt shop was in a nearby strip mall, and a couple of years ago she had faced her own scary issues with the building and
another tenant two doors down from her.

  “Unfortunately, that’s where Liza dropped the scent. She took a two-week vacation in Maui, met a Frenchman who claimed to have a fashion house in Paris, and she had a wild romance until her money ran out. It seems that his had run out before she’d hit the island and he was on his third or fourth “love at first sight.” It took Liza a while to build her finances and business back up, so she doesn’t remember hearing anything about the Provident Commerce Group until around 2003 or 2004 when their signs suddenly started reappearing.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Sally mused.

  “Does Liza think that they set the fire?”

  “She wouldn’t go that far, Peggy, which is why we should pick up the trail and see what we can learn about them.”

  “I can ask the owner of my building,” Aimee offered. “He’s really discrete and owes me one for the incident with the Jamaicans.”

  “Great, I’ll do some investigating as well. It looks like we may need to have another Wine Club this week.”

  “Aw, well, it’s for a good cause.” Sally raised her glass and we all came together in a toast.

  “What’s all this about investigating and Wine Clubs? Are you lasses up to your old tricks without me?”

  “Penelope!” We all cheered again before she gave us a round of kisses.

  “I had to drop nearby to handle some paperwork with Rico and Isabella and thought I’d walk down Rose Avenue and listen for the sound of glasses clinking. You girls will toast to anything.” She laughed heartily and accepted a glass from Aimee.

  Peggy and Sally brought her up to speed on what we knew.

  “I think that Andrew knows that Brandon fellow. He loves to surf too and made an excuse to go out every time he visited Rico’s Pizza. In fact, I’m not sure which came first, the reciprocal deal for pizza and wine or the surfing buddies.”

  “Then he may know what Brandon was looking for in his burned-down place.” Aimee got excited again, and her cheeks blossomed into candy apples.

  “Maybe we should take a different approach,” I said, quickly jumping in. “After all, he had every right to recover what he could. Brandon’s under enough stress . . . he needs his surfing time with Andrew to relax and sort things out.”

  Peggy caught my drift and said, “Halsey’s right . . . we don’t know anything. But if Andrew does mention the fire or his buddy, it would be great if you could recount back to us what was said, Penelope.”

  “Detective Lieutenant Master Penelope reporting for duty.” She grinned and saluted us. She was clearly still in the honeymoon stage of her new life, and nothing was going to bring her down.

  “How is the loss of the pizza parlor going to impact your Fall Harvest Party in the tasting room?”

  “I worried about that too, Sally, but Isabella seems to think that she can bring all the ingredients to the winery and assemble the pies on site. Andrew told me that she came up for a look-see a few days ago, before the fire, and fell in love with the place. He suspects that she’d be perfectly happy running a pizza parlor just for our guests. She told him she just needs a very hot oven. We do have an outdoor brick fireplace and Malcolm downloaded plans to convert it to a pizza oven. His guys think that they can get it ready in time.”

  “Fabulous!” Aimee started another toast.

  * * *

  The neighborhood was quiet on my short walk home as is par for the course. Upon arriving back at my house, I spotted Marisol pulling some grass out from between my front white rose bushes. She often disguises her need for information or a favor with a random act of kindness that she quickly abandons when she gets what she wants.

  “Have you decided to take up the lawn and landscape profession, Marisol?”

  “This is an eyesore; you’re bringing down the whole neighborhood.”

  I sat down on my front step and invited her into my “office.”

  “How may I help you today, Mrs. Marisol Ysabel Rosario Priscila Cordoba?”

  That is her full name, but I might have been a tad over served at Wine Club.

  “You need to fix this. I miss my chicken wings from Rico’s already.”

  “In what way do you think that Rico’s burning down was my fault, Marisol?”

  “Something’s always your fault, although probably not this time. But you can make it so they open a new one right away.”

  “And how do you think that I can do that exactly? You’re the one with the witchcraft and magic wands.”

  “You need to prove that Rico and Isabella didn’t have anything to do with the fire. They get their insurance money, and I get my wings. But we need Bardie’s help.”

  I groused inside from her assault on Bardot’s given name.

  “Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that you already have a plan, Marisol?”

  “I’ve been reading up and talking to people. I know how these things start, and on Sunday when most of the businesses were closed this couldn’t have been no accident.”

  “Doesn’t that reinforce that it was the Brunos then? They were working.”

  “Not if we find out that the point of origin was not in their restaurant. That’s what Bardie—”

  I gave her a look from hell.

  “Bardot needs to tell us. We have to go at night. I’ve got Friday open, or I could do Sunday, but it would have to be after the Dionne Warwick special.”

  With that she toddled off. My front lawn was now strewn with long grass blades and weeds that I would have to clean up. I channeled my inner Sally.

  You better give your heart to Jesus, Marisol, because your butt is mine!

  Chapter Six

  I woke up charged with energy, had breakfast at my desk—an English crumpet with smooth peanut butter and a cup of tea—and was ready to start laying out Liza Gilhooly’s website. Which instantly got me thinking about the Provident Commerce Group, and that led to a sidetracked online search for the entity.

  After being baited by several sites that claimed to have everything I wanted to know only to stop halfway and tell me I needed to pay $29.99 a month to continue, I decided that a different approach was in order.

  I called Isabella and asked her what she could tell me about her landlords—the owners of the strip mall.

  “We never see them,” she told me. “Our rent checks are sent to a bank, and if we have any issues with the unit, we have the name of a manager to call. But he is never available . . . he manages a bunch of buildings in the Valley and usually by the time he calls us back we have fixed the problem ourselves. And footed the bill, which we can’t afford to keep doing.”

  “That’s annoying. Who signed the lease on their side? Do you have a name of someone in this real estate group?”

  I heard Isabella sigh.

  “That’s the thing, Enrico is looking for our copy now. We’ve talked to our insurance adjuster, but he needs to talk to the owners. As usual the manager is not calling us back.”

  “Hmm, that doesn’t sound good, and I suppose they have a deposit from you as well?”

  “Two months.”

  I don’t like any of this.

  “Is it possible that the lease burned in the fire?”

  “I guess so. We try to keep all our important papers at the bank, but the lease wasn’t in the box. Enrico is searching our house for it.”

  “Okay, hang in there, and you know how to find me if you need anything.”

  I was just about to hang up when I had a thought.

  “Isabella, wait. Do you know that kid Brandon who ran the auto parts store?”

  She let out a dry laugh.

  “Yes, he was running that store, all the way into the ground if you ask me.”

  “Really? He claims that he tried everything to market his products and turn it around.”

  “Maybe from atop a surfboard he did, but I never saw it. Brandon and Roberto were pals. They seemed to spend a lot of time together when they weren’t working.”

  “You mean on the water?�
�

  “No, Roberto didn’t care for the ocean, may he rest in peace. It was more like they were constantly working on some ‘get rich quick’ scheme. When deliveries were slow, I’d see them out back smoking and talking in low voices. If I took the trash out, they would immediately stop their conversation and wait until I went back in the restaurant. Occasionally, when Rico was on a break, I’d join them for a cigarette and the conversation would always turn to music or girls. Innocent stuff like that.”

  Interesting, including the fact that they smoked.

  “If you’re looking for Brandon’s surfing buddies, you’d have to go to Venice Beach most mornings. Or maybe talk to Malcolm’s cousin Andrew. I hear that he’s a big surfer, and usually after he was finished here, he’d walk up to Brandon’s place and the two would talk for hours. Roberto and Brandon thought of Andrew as a role model. He had money, a cool job. Me? I thought that the guy was a little too young to think so highly of himself. What is the saying . . . too big for his britches?”

  “Yes, that’s the phrase.”

  “Anyway, while they were loafing around, Rico and I were working hard every day to keep things going. Rico turns sixty-five in three years and I’m not far behind.”

  I tucked that bit of info into the file cabinets of my mind, thanked Isabella for her time, and repeated my offer of help. I pulled out a yellow index card from my desk drawer and wrote down two names:

  Brandon (need last name)

  Provident Commerce Group (need any and all names!)

  “Hey, kiddo, what’re you up to?”

  Sally entered into my office with that healthy glow of having just walked one thousand steps. She went into my little kitchen and grabbed herself a water out of the mini fridge.

  “I just got off the phone with Isabella. She told me some unsettling things about life in their strip mall.”

  I filled Sally in.

  “So Brandon lied to you. He wasn’t trying to save his business, but what would be the point? He certainly didn’t need to impress you . . . for all he knew you were just a passerby and he’d never see you again.” Sally picked up a wooden tennis racquet from my collection and practiced her forehand. I bet that she’d been a formidable competitor in her day. She had the elegance and grace of Venus Williams.